July 23, 2020

How Excessive Sitting Affects your Body

how-excessive-sitting-affects-your-body

We, humans, live a sedentary lifestyle. We spend about 51 hours, 44 minutes of our weekly time being seated. And this lifestyle is not restricted to adults. Our children, too, spend a considerable amount of time sitting at school, during commute, or at home. Prolonged sitting can have detrimental effects on our body, severely affecting our posture and general health. The treatment for the effects can range from small lifestyle changes to even complicated surgeries. We will now talk about four significant negative impacts of excessive sitting on our bodies so that you can be aware of how dangerous sitting for long hours can actually be.

Increased Backpain
Sitting continuously for an extended period puts stress on your back muscles, spinal cord, and the neck. The pain caused by excessive sitting can become severe if you slouch while sitting. You can adopt a good sitting posture to maintain a healthy back and spine and reduce back pain. Still, it is not recommended to sit for long periods. If you’re currently facing back pain issues, you can opt for traditional or virtual physiotherapy in Surrey, or consider a reliable local physiotherapist.

Increased Obesity
Sitting for hours on end can slow down your metabolism and the capability to burn fat. Thus, you are likely to pile on extra kilos if you live the life of a couch potato (the television may or may not be involved). Even tasks such as reading for extended periods can cause the same negative effects. If you’re not keen on exercising, a simple act such as doing the same activities standing can help you burn 30 percent more calories, helping you keep your weight in check.

Reduced Mortality
Prolonged sitting can reduce your lifespan significantly. According to a study, long periods of sitting time was a cause of 14 of the 22 deaths measured. Excessive sitting can cause multiple issues such as increased blood pressure and high blood sugar that can become a contributing factor for early death.

If your profession requires you to sit for long periods, you are more likely to experience deterioration in your cardiovascular health. You are most likely to suffer from heart diseases if you sit for long hours during work. This is evident from a study conducted on London transport workers. The study found that employees in positions that required high physical activity had lower rates of coronary heart disease. The primary reason is that due to a non-active lifestyle, the heart’s blood pumping capability is not challenged. This impacts endurance, metabolism, blood pressure and other factors that increase the risk of a heart attack.

As a primary measure to counter the negative impacts of sitting, you can reduce the amount of time you sit in a day. If that’s not feasible or if you are currently experiencing severe back pain due to prolonged sitting, you can consider physiotherapy in Surrey at a reputed physiotherapist for treatment or general consultation.

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